On This Day . . .

Modern UFO Era Begins

June 24, 1947: Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting

The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting was an incident on June 24, 1947, where private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed he spotted a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at then unheard of supersonic speeds that Arnold clocked at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/hr).

Kenneth Arnold

July 7, 1947, Phoenix AZ – from the “Rhodes” photos

This was the first post-War sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. Arnold’s description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucerand flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.

Kenneth Arnold’s report to Army Air Forces (AAF) intelligence, dated July 12, 1947, which includes annotated sketches of the typical craft in the chain of nine objects.

Or maybe it was a flock of pelicans…

…or the Navy’s V-173 being tested in 1947

This incident is considered the beginning of the modern UFO era.

1947 Interview with Kenneth Arnold just after his sighting:

Kenneth Arnold Interviewed 30 years later:

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In a Related Story

June 24, 1997: U.S. Air force Reports on Roswell

On this day in 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.